Butchery evidence on rodent bones from archaeological sites in the Pampean Region (Argentine).

ESCOSTEGUY PAULA; SALEMME, MÓNICA

Paris, Francia

Congreso; XI International Conference on Archaeozoology; 2010

Université Paris VI et Pierre et Marie Curie

S5-2 & S6-3. General Session Butchery evidence on rodent bones from archaeological sites in the Pampean Region (Argentine). ESCOSTEGUY Paula1 & SALEMME Mónica 2 1Insituto de Arqueología-CONICET (Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires), 25 de Mayo 217, 3er piso, cp. 1002, CABA, Argentina. paueguy@hotmail.com 2 Laboratorio de Geología del Cuaternario (CADIC-CONICET, Universidad de la Patagonia), B. Houssay 200, Ushuaia, Argentina. monica.salemme@gmail.com The analysis on rodent bones from several sites localized in the Pampean Region (Argentine) is presented in this contribution. Two assemblages come from La Guillerma archaeological locality, situated in the Depresión del Salado (Buenos Aires province). The other assemblages came from the archaeological locality Cañada Honda and from the site Río Luján located in the Paraná River basin Northern Buenos Aires province. These places were inhabited during Late Holocene by hunter gatherer fishers. Different species of rodents were documented in these sites: Holochilus brasiliensis, Reithrodon auritus, Ctenomys sp., Cavia aperea, Myocastor coypus, Lagostomus maximus and Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris. A very important issue is the difference on size: some species are small (less than 1 kg), other are middle-sized (around 5-10 kg) and the biggest one can get a weight of 50 kg. The aim of the bone analysis is to document and interpret the butchery evidence. We registered cut marks and fracture patterns, as well as burning features. M. coypus was the most exploited rodent and it is the most frequent taxa in studied archaeological sites with evidence of skinning, filleting and disarticulation. Some fractures which could be the consequence of marrow consumption were also documented. Other taxa with butchery evidence are: L. maximus and H. hydrochaeris. Nevertheless, these evidences are few compared with those recognized in M. coypus’ bones.